 Earthbound has obtained a substantial cult following over the past couple of decades, thanks to its oddball atmosphere, sense of humor, and the kind of story you didn't see much of back in the 16-bit era. Many of you know that Earthbound is actually the second game in a series, in Japan it was released as Mother 2, so how about we take a look at the first Mother game, simply titled Mother, released only in Japan up until 2015 when it was released worldwide on the Wii U Virtual Console as Earthbound Beginnings. This game was scheduled for a North American release in 1991, but it was dropped at the last minute. A prototype of that version still got out and has since gone by the title Earthbound Zero. Mother was also released as part of a compilation Mother 1 and 2 on Game Boy Advance in 2003, only in Japan. Now, this is a difficult game to review. Mother is an RPG as you might expect, developed by what is largely the same team as Earthbound, and unsurprisingly it does have a very similar vibe to a certain extent. The problem, however, lies with the limitations inherent to the time, because man, oh man, this game could be hard to get through, mostly because, well, it's just how RPGs were back then. The dungeon maps are ginormous, and you constantly run into random battles leading to way too much grinding, and even when you feel like you're overleveled from all that grinding, you still get overpowered bosses that kill you without breaking a sweat. Still, Mother has a certain magnetism to it because of how the dialogue is written, how goofy some of the characters are, and how fun the story is. Well, how fun it gets eventually. The first half of the story is pretty bland, but the second half of the game picks up. It really stands out significantly among all its peers, even if you throw in games from other platforms like the E-Series, it's still distinct for that specific time. Just for dialogue like this guy saying, fine, die on your own, what do I care, I'll call a mortician. Or this guy here asking if you think his wife is terrible and getting all mad when you agree with him, I don't know, either you think it's funny or you don't, humor is entirely subjective. I happen to like it, especially as a contrast to other early RPG dialogue. Mother takes place in the late 80s where you play as Nin-Ten. Yes, Nin-Ten. A 12 year old boy that discovers he has psychic abilities after some crazy stuff starts happening in his house one night, like how he ends up fighting a lamp and his sister's doll. And just like Earthbound, he has to track down eight melodies, only except for being behind boss fights at the end of Dungeons, they're hidden throughout the game. So yeah, you have to spend a lot of time here exploring and checking for various items, like right away you have to check the dresser to obtain the first melody, then you have to talk to your dog to find the basement key. Both the game structure and the combat system are the same as games like the early Dragon Quest series, you wander around towns, talk to people, buy equipment, use magic, all that stuff. But of course what makes Mother different is that it's not a fantasy or sword and sorcery motif. It's a modern setting and a lot of the NPC dialogue is played up for laughs. In fact, one of, if not the best thing about this game, is that it makes fun of other role-playing games. So if you're already very familiar with games of its time, then you'll get a big kick out of this one. However, this is a game where I have to say the phrase at the time and of its time a lot because the combat is pretty limited. There's strict limits on inventory and while there's an auto battle function which helps, even the most basic battles can be brutal. Thankfully when you die and you will die a lot, you don't lose progress, you revive at the previous town losing only money. And the game does cleverly allow you to backtrack by leaving breadcrumbs where you'd like so you can warp back to certain locations. There is a run button which helps as well, but it only works in the Earthbound Beginnings and Game Boy Advance versions. If you're playing the Earthbound Zero ROM, it just functions as kind of a fast forward button and speeds up everything. But while those aspects help the overall experience, Mother is still majorly flawed. Like when you get certain new party members and they start out at level one, come on, really? So you gotta grind and grind to prevent them from being utterly useless and you gotta travel all around getting their equipment up to speed which takes forever. It's worth mentioning though that you can also do tricks that can help you out a bit, like opening the menu every few steps, since evidently that resets the random encounter sequence. But still, you shouldn't have to resort to stuff like that, it just gets annoying. But maybe the most annoying factor that routinely keeps popping up is the inventory limit. Ugh. So yeah, your enjoyment of Mother or Earthbound Beginnings or Earthbound Zero all depends on if you like early role-playing games like this. I can tell you, if you like the original Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy games, you're really gonna dig this one. But if you feel like life is too short for random battles and backtracking and being confused, then I don't blame you if you don't want to play this one. I should mention that there is a patch out there that completely rebalances the game and makes it much more forgiving and player-friendly, which is nice because it allows you to experience the entire story, which is worth seeing. The game definitely has that Earthbound vibe where it manages to be simultaneously funny and creepy and unsettling, and the music here really accentuates that big time. The bottom line is, if you want to play Mother, you gotta know what you're getting yourself into. If you like old, grindy RPGs, go for it. If you don't, then avoid this one. If you don't but you still want to experience the story, then you try out the easy patch.